Consumer Behaviour

The path to writing a book and getting it published is, without doubt, one that winds a lot.

On the way there will be plenty of dead-ends and no shortage of obstacles to circumnavigate.

However, what makes all the anguish worthwhile, are the moments that result from starting out and that are every bit as gratifying as the writer’s block, rejection letters and suggested revisions are aggravating.

I find there are usually three ways to deal with virtually any situation in life: ignore it and carry on regardless, take it badly or use it for inspiration.  It’s no coincidence that there really was something to learn from each ‘bad’ moment along the way.

Writer’s block: (which I hardly ever got) you’re trying to hard, go and do something else for a bit, or skip this section for now, it’s obviously not flowing.

Rejection letters: there’s always a lot of luck involved, but are you sure you’ve sent the book to the people who are most likely to have an interest in it?

‘Suggested’ Revisions: the biggest benefit of having a publisher is someone else who cares about your book almost as much as you do looking at it objectively.  Every single one of the suggestions my publisher and editor put to me have made the book better.  I confess that, once or twice, I had to count to ten, because I thought the book was finished.  Fortunately I made it to the last finger on the second hand, started to look at what they were advocating without the frustration from the process and the book was better for it.

And what about those moments that make it all worthwhile?  I’m reliably told that having the first copy in your hand is one of them, but I’ve not reached that point yet.  Thus far the highlights have been:

• Realising I had the structure of a book that excited me: you’re going to be working on it for a while, so you need to keep yourself interested!
• Every five thousand word threshold as I wrote.
• Finishing the first draft and seeing that I had written a book (even if I did have no clue whether anyone would be interested enough in it to publish it).
• Getting a meeting with a publisher.
• Walking through the door of the publishers.
• Receiving a contract.
• Getting a cheque for the first part of the advance.
• Seeing the cover for the first time.

And here is that cover….

Consumer.ology

It’s still making me smile….

Philip Graves

Philip Graves Getting a Book Published book, consumer behaviour, consumer.ology, market research

OK, I’ve used a little hyperbole in the title of this blog, I’ll admit.  There is no perfect submission letter because each submission you send is going in front of a different pair of eyes.

But I think there are some very important points to consider and at the end I’ll tell you my own idea of what might help tip the balance when you send your dream off to a publisher.

Firstly, and most importantly, check whether the publisher you are writing to has a preference for what a submission contains.  Many of them do.  Of course, you don’t have to follow it slavishly, but you need to work within their parameters and find a way to stand out without appearing to have ignored their wishes.  When you get published you’ll be working with your publisher and demonstrating you can’t pay attention to their needs isn’t a recipe for success.

Next make sure the working title is clearly stated.  I suggest describing it as a ‘working title’; if someone has a better one you should be open to it even if it does feel like the equivalent of renaming your child.

Then say how long the book will be (A4 double spaced pages and word count) and whether or not it is finished yet.

Your synopsis should be short; think in terms of the back cover of a book.  If you can’t wrap it up succinctly perhaps it isn’t clear enough.  You need to get the idea over in a paragraph or two – no more.

It might also be helpful to say why the world needs your book – what will it do.

Make it clear who the book is targeting and be clear in your own mind how attractive a market this is likely to be to your publisher.  Look at the titles they currently publish and who they are targeted at.  Hopefully the fit is good, otherwise expect a rejection letter: publishers like to play to their strengths (a sensible approach if you think about it).

Don’t be afraid to point out your books competitors.  In the world of publishing competing titles are often a good thing rather than a bad one.  They show that there is a market for the subject matter and publishers, like the rest of us, are fundamentally risk averse.  Of course it will be helpful to point out why your book is adding something new or different.  But be warned, even if your breaking new ground, saying that there are no other books out there isn’t as an appealing proposition for a publisher as you might think.

Outline your credentials for writing the book.  This is no time for false modesty.  If you’ve written the book you will, by definition, know a fair amount more than the average person about your subject.

Finally, and arguably most importantly, explain what you can and will do to market your book.  Imagine you’re a publisher reading a submission.  You want to be interested in it yourself, you want to feel you know the market (it’s an area you have experience of publishing before) and someone says “I will market the heck out of this”.  There is a very good chance they can feel confident about selling most of the first print run. 

That probably doesn’t mean they break even, but it’s a good step in the right direction.

The internet provides countless opportunities for marketing your book:
- through your blog and /or website
- through twitter
- through other peoples ezines
- through article marketing
- by emailing everyone you’ve ever met (who are currently clogging up your Microsoft Office contacts)
- LinkedIn contacts and groups

But what about going a step beyond these?  After all these are mostly time-based rather than cost-based.

My top tip is to put your money where your mouth is.  Decide how much you are prepared to invest in marketing your own book and include some examples:
- placing a full page ad in a relevant trade journal or two
- sending the book to key individuals at your own expense
- even undertaking your own PR work (via a specialist book PR company)

Clearly you need to be careful that you don’t commit to something without having a clear idea of the costs involved: do that research first!

Then get a good quality envelope, print your book’s first 30 pages (or whatever is required) on good quality paper, and put a couple of drops of lemon oil in the envelope just before you close it (heck, you didn’t expect me not to leverage appealing subliminal associations did you?).

I’ll let you know how I get on…

Philip Graves

Philip Graves Getting a Book Published book, Marketing

Make no mistake, getting a book published is tough.  Some of that is for the right reasons; after all there are a zillion people who would like the idea of having a book published and there isn’t a market for that many books – it’s no bad thing that the publishers and literary agents of this world act as something of a buffer between all the prospective junk and the ones that make it into print.  And, of course, lots of those won’t sell particularly well.

But some of the reasons getting your book published is tough aren’t good ones.

One publisher that I sent my book to took twelve weeks to reply (and only then after I had called to enquire about its progress, which is something they say you shouldn’t do).

In fact, I would agree that you shouldn’t do it.  I happen to know that the rejection I received was simply a way of getting me off the phone.  Because two weeks later I received a letter that also rejected my book, but for an entirely different reason.

This was the same publisher who, when I was speaking to someone to ask how long they were taking to review submissions said, “We’ve got a lot backing up at the moment, but we have someone coming in next week to go through them all.”

Now, they probably meant they were employing an experienced freelance submission reviewer (or whatever they are called) but it had the air of, “We’ve got this kid coming in from the temp agency for a couple of days just to get the rejection letters sent out.”

I remember reading an interview with a publisher who was asked why they never gave writers much by way of feedback when they were rejecting their work.  The answer was extremely honest: he explained that if you give feedback you risk the writer thinking that they can get into a dialogue with you or, worse still, making the changes they think you want and expecting you to read it again and say ‘yes’. 

The implication is that, if a publisher thinks a book has sufficient merit, they will commission it and work on it with the writer.

One of the many advantages of having Francis on my side is that when he has spoken to someone about my book they are responding to their relationship with him, not to some complete stranger.

He spoke to someone he used to work with who is now the sales director of a medium-sized publisher and she said she would pass my book on to the managing editor; that’s particularly handy when you’re dealing with a publisher who doesn’t invite unsolicited submissions.

It was, regrettably, another rejection.

But not only did I receive an explanation of why - my book just wasn’t a strong fit with the titles they publish – I also received a suggestion of a publisher who she thought would be interested in my book.

That means I have a pretty good idea that the publisher fit is strong, so what this publisher thinks really matters.  If they reject it I will need to reconsider things because they should be interested in the subject matter.

I’m going to review my submission carefully, tune it up so that it gives my book the best possible chance and write the most important letter so far.

It just goes to show… having a Francis is immeasurably helpful for all sorts of direct (advice) and indirect (relationships with the industry) reasons.  It also shows how difficult it can be to pinpoint the publishers who will be most interested in your work. 

Next time I’ll tell you more about what I’m putting in this submission.

Philip Graves

Philip Graves Getting a Book Published book, published, publishers

Forgive the provocative title, I’m sure your book is wonderful, but I’m guessing that the self-doubt the writing process is riddled with isn’t something only I have experienced!

In fact, Francis, my ‘fairy book father’ (I really must find a better way of describing him) reassures me that self-doubt is pretty much inevitable.

The process of writing is, for the most part, a solitary pursuit.  Every now and then some clever soul conspires a way of writing that involves other people; co-writing, basing a book on interviews or… well there must be a third way that escapes me now (and writing being what it is, there’s no one here to ask).  Even these people will be faced with a fair amount of editing or compiling that is shared only with the computer keyboard.

And it’s hard to sustain that initial resolve that you have something to say 100% of the time.  Sometimes, when you get stuck, you find yourself questioning whether that’s because you’re just a bit stuck or because you’ve completely lost your way. 

The good news is that, provided you keep on keeping on, you’ll get to the end eventually (and if you’re like me you’ll find the habit of writing kicks in and then you accelerate towards the end rather than stutter and stall).

But then the nature of the submission process rears its head and if you were anything less than certain about your work before there’s every chance the spectre of doubt will reappear.

Of course it’s perfectly possible that your book will be rejected because it’s a bit less than good, or possibly entirely awful.  On the other hand there are a myriad of other possibilities.

Think about it from the other end.  In order to be taken on by a publisher or literary agent the following events must conspire in your favour:

• The postal service do what they should and deliver your submission (some kind of tracking is advisable to mitigate against this).
• Someone actually reads your submission (I’m not suggesting anything else would ever happen, well, OK, I know this does happen).
• It fits with the type of book they are interested in publishing.
• The person reading it likes it.
• The person reading it believes there is a market for it.
• That person doesn’t have another book or books that they are fully occupied with so, much as yours looks interesting, they’re already committed elsewhere.
• That person hasn’t just read another book that they find fractionally more interesting than yours (most things are relative after all) and to which they’ve just committed themselves.
• That person isn’t having a bad day that means, despite meeting all of the above criteria, they’re too grumpy to say yes.

So when the first rejection drops on your mat there’s no reason to be disheartened after all.  That’s what I’m telling myself and Francis agrees.  He’s swiftly directed me towards another publishing contact and the journey continues…

Philip Graves

Philip Graves Getting a Book Published book, publishing, writing a book

So, having written my book, and to be honest a question I pondered whilst I was writing it, how should I try and get it published.  I say ‘try’ because we’ve all heard stories about people trying to find an established publisher only to discover that they receive a billion manuscripts a day and only think about looking at a couple; OK a mild exaggeration, but no doubt it’s a tough route to go.

What are the options?

Self-publishing sounds like one option, but in fact it covers a multitude of possibilities (and let me say right now that I’m no expert on any of them).  These range from essentially paying a company to publish your work for you to sending it to an on-line company who do nothing more than print one off (or send it electronically) when a request arrives. 

Paying to be published strikes me as a risky route to go.  You have no way to know how effective the support you’ll receive will be, and with the publisher earning all their revenue from your business with them (rather than from the sales of the book) they don’t have a compelling need to market it aggressively on your behalf.

The print on demand type services are an interesting way to go.  My friend Jay Wright wrote a book on Guitar Acquisition Syndrome and lodged it with Lulu.com.  He’s sold several thousand around the world through his own marketing efforts, through guitar shows, guitar stores and EBay.  With a print on demand service there’s no major risk; you can order a large number of copies to get the average cost down slightly, but you can order small numbers too.

Self-publishing offers the attractive potential of  receiving a higher profit per sale.  With no publisher’s profit to consider the sales model is a very simple function of volume and price.  What’s more, the print quality is excellent and you don’t have to fight with anyone about pricing, marketing, the cover design or anything else!

With so many advantages to the self-published route why look for a publisher?

I think there are several potential advantages:

• It’s easy to look at publishers as the enemy, but they should be the people with the knowledge and expertise to help make the most of your (and their) product.
• Being master of your own destiny is all well and good, but if you respect someone else’s opinion having someone care about your all the elements of your book should help make it better, not worse.
• Publishing works like an implicit endorsement; yes, there are many lousy books that have been published, but nevertheless anyone can self-publish.  At least a published book has found one person who thinks enough of it to bring it to the book-buying market.

Downsides?  Not finding a publisher who wants your book is probably the biggest!  And once you have one they may suggest changes you don’t agree with, fleece you with a contract that is unfair, not lift a finger to market your work, and probably a thousand other things I’ve yet to encounter!

I’ve decided to try and get a publisher for my book.  I want the expertise, I want someone to help make my book as good as it can be and I think that the added endorsement will enhance its status.

But I know finding a publisher won’t be easy.  I’m willing to be persistent.  But it’s a big publishing world, how the heck do you decide where to start?

I’ll discuss that next time, when a big stroke of luck shines a bright light on the murky world of publishing!

Philip Graves

Philip Graves Getting a Book Published book, getting published